May 29 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc. could become a “serious
competitive threat” to the auto industry if it continues to
push its self-driving cars, said Mark Reuss, product-development
chief at General Motors Co.

GM, which is developing its own autonomous vehicle
technology, isn’t in a race with Google to create driverless
cars, he told reporters yesterday in Detroit.

Google announced May 27 that it plans to deploy at least
100 fully autonomous vehicles that it designed in tests starting
this year. The two-seat cars will have a top speed of 25 miles
(40 kilometers) per hour and no steering wheel. The Mountain
View, California-based company previously had been testing its
technology in other vehicles, such as Toyota Motor Corp.’s
Prius.

“Anybody can do anything with enough time and money,”
Reuss said. “If they set their mind to it, I have no doubt”
that they could become “a very serious competitive threat.”

GM demonstrated last year what it calls Super Cruise
technology, which will support semi-automated driving features
including hands-off lane following, braking and speed control
under certain conditions. GM also has an autonomous vehicle
project called EN-V that it’s been developing in China. The soda
machine-sized pods don’t look like normal cars.

Creeping Change

The industry will phase in autonomous vehicles over years,
Reuss said.

“It’s going to be a creep, it’s not going to be a mind-bending thing,” Reuss said. “I don’t think you’re going to see
an autonomous vehicle take over the city anytime soon.”

Reuss, saying he’s only seen Google’s little car in a
photograph, described it as “kind of cool” adding that it
looked similar to an old Volkswagen Beetle.

Over the next two decades, self-driving cars are going to
get a bigger share of the market. Such vehicles will reach 11.8
million in 2035, according to Egil Juliussen, an analyst at IHS
Automotive. And by 2050, he expects almost all cars to become
self-driving. They are estimated to fetch premiums that will
start at $7,000 to $10,000 in 2025, he said.

GM shares fell 0.4 percent to $34.45 at the close in New
York, while Google slipped 0.3 percent to $560.08.